14 Years

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This morning MSNBC broadcast the recording of the coverage of the terrorist attacks on 9-11-01, and it was gut wrenching. So many memories, so many horrors to relive. No wonder we all became flag-waving fanatics for a time.

But the review also included the impromptu announcement of President Bush, from that Florida elementary school -- that America would discover the responsible entities (later to be termed evil doers) and "hunt them down" and make them pay for what they did.

But that didn't happen. Fifteen of the 19 terrorists responsible for the attack were Saudi nationals. Yet Bush/Cheney took no action against Saudi Arabia. There was no UN meeting about punishing the Saudis, no interruption of relations whatsoever.

And once Osama bin Laden was named as mastermind of the attacks, interestingly, a group of high-level Saudi nationals and members of the bin Laden family were scurried out of America just a few days after the attack in a move supervised by Bush counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.

And so Bush attacks Afghanistan and then Iraq. And kisses and snuggles the Saudi prince.

And, we've had 14 years of never-ending terror wars. Tens of thousands of dead and maimed soldiers and civilians. Cities in ruin. Homeless refugees dying in the streets.

Could this have been managed differently if the 9-11 attacks were handled by the Justice Department rather than the Dept. of War Defense? As a police, rather than military, action? Or if the Supremes hadn't appointed Dubya as Commandant in Chief?